Troop 401 Derby Campout at Gilwell Park

In March, Troop 401 held its annual Outdoor Derby campout at historic Gilwell Park. This is

famous as the site of Lord Baden Powell’s first Scout adult training centre in 1919 and is

always a popular campout site with Scouts.

The Outdoor Derby, as always, is focussed on key Scouting skills and is a great opportunity

for Scouts who have just joined the Troop after crossing over from Pack 175 to get to grips

with camping as Scouts and to get a lot of outdoor rank requirements earned.

To add a bit of added excitement, Scouts worked in Patrols and competed against each

other. Skills covered during the competition included axe and knife basics, pioneering skills,

fire building, cooking, nature skills and basic camping techniques.

Being England in March, the weather is never reliable. Scouts had the added challenge of

dealing with rain on the Friday and Sunday so had to both put up tents and break camp in

the rain, never an easy experience. Luckily the weather stayed reasonably dry during the

main activities on Saturday but the extremely damp conditions in the run up to the campout

made fire building particularly challenging.

Despite the damp conditions and the fact that the Troop was virtually camping in a marsh,

spirits remained high and it was an extremely valuable experience for those Scouts that

attended.